HAPPINESS is the true end and aim of life.
It is the task of intelligence to ascertain the conditions of happiness,
and when found the truly wise will live in accordance with them. By happiness
is meant not simply the joy of eating and drinking -- the gratification
of the appetite -- but good, well-being, in the highest and noblest
form. The joy that springs from obligation discharged, from duty done,
from generous acts, from being true to the ideal, from a perception of
the beautiful in nature, art and conduct. The happiness that is born of
and gives birth to poetry and music, that follows the gratification of
the highest wants.

Happiness is the result of all that is really right and sane.

But there are many people who regard the desire to he happy as a very
low and degrading ambition. These people call themselves spiritual. They
pretend to care nothing for the pleasures of "sense." They hold
this world, this life, in contempt. They do not want happiness in this
world -- but in another. Here, happiness degrades -- there, it purifies
and ennobles.

These spiritual people have been known as prophets, apostles, augurs,
hermits, monks, priests, popes, bishops and parsons. They are devout and
useless. They do not cultivate the soil. They produce nothing. They live
on the labor of others. They are pious and parasitic. They pray for others,
if the others will work for then. They claim to have been selected by the
Infinite to instruct and govern mankind. They are "meek" and
arrogant, "long-suffering" and revengeful.

They ever have been, now are, and always will be the enemies of liberty,
of investigation and science. They are believers in the supernatural, the
miraculous and the absurd. They have filled the world with hatred, bigotry
and fear. In defence of their creeds they have committed every crime and
practiced every cruelty.

They denounce as worldly and sensual, those who are gross enough to
love wives and children, to build homes, to fell the forests, to navigate
the seas, to cultivate the earth, to chisel statues, to paint pictures
and fill the world with love and art.

They have denounced and maligned the thinkers, the poets, the dramatists,
the composers, the actors, the orators, the workers -- those who have conquered
the world for man.

According to them this world is only the vestibule of the next, a kind
of school, an ordeal, a place of Probation. They have always insisted that
this life should be spent in preparing for the next; that those who supported
and obeyed the "spiritual guides" -- the shepherds, would be
rewarded with an eternity of joy, and that all others would suffer eternal
pain.

These spiritual people have always hated labor. They have added nothing
to the wealth of the world. They have always lived on alms -- on the labor
of others. They have always been the enemies of innocent pleasure, and
of human love.

These spiritual people have produced a literature. The books they have
written are called sacred. Our sacred books are called the Bible.
The Hindoos have the Vedas and many others, the Persians the Zend Avesta
-- the Egyptians had the Book of the Dead -- the Aztecs the Popol Vuh,
and the Mohammedans have the Koran.

These books, for the most part, treat of the unknowable. They describe
gods and winged phantoms of the air. They give accounts of the origin of
the universe, the creation of man and the worlds beyond this. They contain
nothing of value. Millions and millions of people have wasted their lives
studying these absurd and ignorant books.

The "spiritual people" in each country claimed that their
books had been written by inspired men -- that God was the real author,
and that all men and women who denied this would be, after death, tormented
forever.

And yet, the worldly people, the uninspired, the wicked, have produced
a far greater literature than the spiritual and the inspired.

Not all the sacred books of the world equal Shakespeare's "volume
of the brain." A purer philosophy, grander, nobler, fell from the
lips of Shakespeare's clowns than the Old Testament or the New, contains.

The Declaration of Independence is nobler far than all the utterances
from Sinai's cloud and flame. "A Man's a Man for a' That," by
Robert Burns, is better than anything the sacred books contain. For my
part, I would rather hear Beethoven's Sixth Symphony than to read the five
books of Moses. Give me the Sixth Symphony -- this sound-wrought picture
of the fields and woods, of flowering hedge and happy home, where thrushes
build and swallows fly, and mothers sing to babes; this echo of the babbled
lullaby of brooks that, dallying, wind and fall where meadows bare their
daisied bosoms to the sun; this joyous mimicry of summer rain, the laugh
of children, and the rhythmic rustle of the whispering leaves; this strophe
of peasant life; this perfect poem of content and love.

I would rather listen to Tristan and Isolde -- that Mississippi of melody
-- where the great notes, winged like eagles, lift the soul above the cares
and griefs of this weary world -- than to all the orthodox sermons ever
preached. I would rather look at the Venus de Milo than to read the Presbyterian
creed.

The spiritual have endeavored to civilize the world through fear and
faith -- by the promise of reward and the threat of pain in other
worlds. They taught men to hate and persecute their fellow-men. In
all ages they have appealed to force. During all the years they have practiced
fraud. They have pretended to have influence with the gods -- that their
prayers gave rain, sunshine and harvest -- that their curses brought pestilence
and famine, and that their blessings filled the world with plenty. They
have subsisted on the fears their falsehoods created. Like poisonous vines,
they have lived on the oak of labor. They have praised charity, but they
never gave. They have denounced revenge, but they never forgave.

Whenever the spiritual have had power, art has died, learning has languished,
science has been despised, liberty destroyed, the thinkers have been imprisoned,
the intelligent and honest have been outcasts, and the brave have been
murdered.

The "spiritual" have been, are, and always will be the enemies
of the human race.

For all the blessings that we now enjoy -- for progress in every form,
for science and art -- for all that has lengthened life, that has conquered
disease, that has lessened pain, for raiment, roof and food, for music
in its highest forms -- for the poetry that has ennobled and
enriched our lives -- for the marvellous machines now working
for the world -- for all this we are indebted to the worldly -- to those
who turned their attention to the affairs of this life. They have been
the only benefactors of our race.

II

AND yet all of these religions -- these
"sacred books," these priests, have been naturally produced.
From the dens and caves of savagery to the palaces of civilization men
have traveled by the necessary paths and roads. Back of every step has
been the efficient cause. In the history of the world there has been no
chance, no interference from without, nothing miraculous. Everything in
accordance with and produced by the facts in nature.

We need not blame the hypocritical and cruel. They thought and acted
as they were compelled to think and act.

In all ages man has tried to account for himself and his surroundings.
He did the best he could. He wondered why the water ran, why the trees
grew, why the clouds floated, why the stars shone, why the sun and moon
journeyed through the heavens. He was troubled about life and death, about
darkness and dreams. The seas, the volcanoes, the lightning and thunder,
the earthquake and cyclone, filled him with fear. Behind all life and
growth and motion, and even inanimate things, he placed a spirit -- an
intelligent being -- a fetich, a person, something like himself -- a god,
controlled by love and hate. To him causes and effects became gods -- supernatural
beings. The Dawn was a maiden, wondrously fair, the Sun, a warrior and
lover; the Night, a serpent, a wolf -- the Wind, a musician; Winter, a
wild beast; Autumn, Proserpine gathering flowers.

Poets were the makers of these myths. They were the first to account
for what they saw and felt. The great multitude mistook these fancies for
facts. Myths strangely alike, were produced by most nations, and gradually
took possession of the world.

The Sleeping Beauty, a myth of the year, has been found among most peoples.
In this myth, the Earth was a maiden -- the Sun was her lover. She had
fallen asleep in winter. Her blood was still and her breath had gone. In
the Spring the lover came, clasped her in his arms, covered her lips and
cheeks with kisses. She was thrilled, her heart began to beat, she breathed,
her blood flowed, and she awoke to love and joy. This myth has made the
circuit of the globe.

So, Red Riding-Hood is the history of a day. Little Red Riding-Hood
-- the morning, touched with red, goes to visit her kindred, a day that
is past. She is attacked by the wolf of night and is rescued by the hunter,
Apollo, who pierces the heart of the beast with an arrow of light.

The beautiful myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is the story of the year.
Eurydice has been captured and carried to the infernal world. Orpheus,
playing upon his harp, goes after her. Such is the effect of his music
when he reaches the realm of Pluto, the laughterless, that Tantalus ceases
his efforts to slake his thirst. He listens and forgets his withered lips,
the daughters of the Danaides cease their vain efforts to fill the sieve
with water, Sisyphus sits down on the stone that he so often had heaved
against the mountain's misty side, Ixion pauses upon his wheel of fire,
even Pluto smiles, and for the first time in the history of hell the cheeks
of the Furies are wet with tears.

"Give me back Eurydice," cried Orpheus, and Pluto said: "Take
her, but look not back." Orpheus led the way and Eurydice followed.
Just as he reached the upper world, he missed her footsteps, turned, looked,
and she vanished.

And thus the summer comes, is lost, and comes again through all the
years.

So, our ancestors believed in the Garden of Eden, in the Golden Age,
in the blessed time when all were good and pure -- when nature satisfied
the wants of all. The race, like the old man, has golden dreams of youth.
The morning was filled with light and life and joy, and the evening is
always sad. When the old man was young, girls were beautiful and men were
honest. He remembers his Eden. And so the whole world has had its age of
gold.

Our fathers were believers in the Elysian Fields. They were in the far,
far West. They saw them at the setting of the sun. They saw the floating
isles of gold in sapphire seas; the templed mist with spires and domes
of emerald and amethyst: the magic caverns of the clouds, resplendent with
the rays of every gem. And as they looked, they thought the curtain had
been drawn aside and that their eyes had for a moment feasted on the glories
of another world.

The myth of the Flood has also been universal. Finding shells of the
seas on plain and mountain, and everywhere some traces of the waves, they
thought the world had been submerged -- that God in wrath had
drowned the race, except a few his mercy saved.

The Hindus say that Menu, a holy man, dipped from the Ganges some water,
and in the basin saw a little fish. The fish begged him to throw him back
into the river, and Menu, having pity, cast him back. The fish then told
Menu that there was to be a flood -- told him to build an ark, to take
on board, people, animals and food, and that when the flood came, he, the
fish, would save him. The saint did as he was told, the flood came, the
fish returned. By that time he had grown to be a whale with a horn in his
head. About this horn Menu fastened a rope, attached the other end to the
ark, and the fish towed the boat across the raging waves to a mountain's
top, where it rested until the waters subsided. The name of this wonderful
fish was Matsaya.

Many other nations told similar stories of floods and arks and the sending
forth of doves.

In all these myths and legends of the past we find philosophies and
dreams and efforts, stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried
to pierce the mysteries of life and death, to answer the questions of the
whence and whither, and who vainly sought with bits of shattered
glass to make a mirror that would in very truth reflect the face and form
of Nature's perfect self. These myths were born of hopes and fears, of
tears and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of
joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth and deaths sad night. They
clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties
of the sons of men. In them the winds and waves were music, and all the
springs, the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand
fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire, made
tawny Summer's billowy breast the throne and home of love, filled Autumn's
arms with sun-kissed grapes and gathered sheaves, and pictured Winter
as a weak old king, who felt, like Lear, upon his withered face, Cordelia's
tears.

These myths, though false in fact, are beautiful and true in thought,
and have for many ages and in countless ways enriched the heart and kindled
thought.

III

IN all probability the first religion was
Sun-worship. Nothing could have been more natural. Light was life
and warmth and love. The sun was the fireside of the world. The sun was
the "all-seeing" -- the "Sky Father." Darkness
was grief and death, and in the shadows crawled the serpents of despair
and fear.

The sun was a great warrior, fighting the hosts of Night. Apollo was
the sun, and he fought and conquered the serpent of Night. Agni, the generous,
who loved the lowliest and visited the humblest, was the sun. He was the
god of fire, and the crossed sticks that by friction leaped into flame
were his emblem. It was said that, in spite of his goodness, he devoured
his father and mother, the two pieces of wood being his parents. Baldur
was the sun. He was in love with the Dawn -- a maiden -- he deserted her
and traveled through the heavens alone. At the twilight they met, were
reconciled, and the drops of dew were the tears of joy they shed.

Chrishna was the sun. At his birth the Ganges thrilled from its source
to the sea. All the trees, the dead as well as the living, burst into leaf
and bud and flower.

Hercules was a sun-god.

Jonah the same, rescued from the fiends of Night and carried by the
fish through the under world. Samson was a sun-god. His strength was
in his hair -- in his beams. He was shorn of his strength by Delilah, the
shadow -- the darkness. So, Osiris, Bacchus, Mithra, Hermes, Buddha, Quelzalcoatle,
Prometheus, Zoroaster, Perseus, Codom Lao-tsze Fo-hi, Horus and Rameses
were all sun-gods.

All these gods had gods for fathers and all their mothers were virgins.

The births of nearly all were announced by stars.

When they were born there was celestial music -- voices declared that
a blessing had come upon the earth.

When Buddha was born, the celestial choir sang: "This day is born
for the good of men Buddha, and to dispel the darkness of their ignorance
-- to give joy and peace to the world."

Chrishna was born in a cave, and protected by shepherds. Bacchus, Apollo,
Mithra and Hermes were all born in caves. Buddha was born in
an inn -- according to some, under a tree.

Tyrants sought to kill all of these gods when they were babes.

When Chrishna was born, a tyrant killed the babes of the neighborhood.

Buddha was the child of Maya, a virgin, in the kingdom of Madura. The
king arrested Maya before the child was born; imprisoned her in a tower.
During the night when the child was born, a great wind wrecked the tower,
and carried mother and child to a place of safety. The next morning the
king sent his soldiers to kill the babes, and when they came to Buddha
and his mother, the babe appeared to be about twelve years of age, and
the soldiers passed on.

So Typhon sought in many ways to destroy the babe Horus. The king pursued
the infant Zoroaster. Cadmus tried to kill the infant Bacchus.

All of these gods were born on the 25th of December.

Nearly all were worshiped by "wise men."

All of them fasted for forty days.

All met with a violent death.

All rose from the dead.

The history of these gods is the history of our Christ. He had a god
for a father, a virgin for a mother. He was born in a manger, or a cave
-- on the 25th of December. His birth was announced by angels. He was worshiped
by wise men, guided by a star. Herod, seeking his life, caused the death
of many babes. Christ fasted for forty days. So, it rained for forty days
before the flood -- Moses was on Mt. Sinai for forty days. The temple had
forty pillars and the Jews wandered in the wilderness for forty years.
Christ met with a violent death, and rose from the dead.

These things are not accidents -- not coincidences. Christ was a sun-god.
All religions have been born of sun-worship. To-day, when priests
pray, they shut their eyes. This is a survival of sun-worship. When
men worshiped the sun, they had to shut their eyes. Afterwards, to flatter
idols, they pretended that the glory of their faces was more than the eyes
could bear.

In the religion of our day there is nothing original. All of its doctrines,
its symbols and ceremonies are but the survivals of creeds that perished
long ago. Baptism is far older than Christianity -- than Judaism. The Hindus,
the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans had holy water. The eucharist
was borrowed from the Pagans. Ceres was the goddess of the fields, Bacchus
the god of the vine. At the harvest festival they made cakes of wheat and
said: "These are the flesh of the goddess." They drank wine and
cried: "This is the blood of our god."

The cross has been a symbol for many thousands of years. It was a symbol
of immortality -- of life, of the god Agni, the form of the grave of a
man. An ancient people of Italy, who lived long before the Romans, long
before the Etruscans, so long that not one word of their language is known,
used the cross, and beneath that emblem, carved on stone, their dead still
rest. In the forests of Central America, ruined temples have been found,
and on the walls the cross with the bleeding victim. On Babylonian cylinders
is the impression of the cross. The Trinity came from Egypt. Osiris, Isis
and Horus were worshiped thousands of years before our Father, Son and
Holy Ghost were thought of. So the Tree of Life grew in India, China and
among the Aztecs long before the Garden of Eden was planted. Long before
our Bible was known, other nations had their sacred books, temples and
altars, sacrifices, ceremonies and priests. The "Fall of
Man" is far older than our religion, and so are the "Atonement"
and the Scheme of Redemption.

In our blessed religion there is nothing new, nothing original.

Among the Egyptians the cross was a symbol of the life to come. And
yet the first religion was, and all religions growing out of that, were
naturally produced. Every brain was a field in which Nature sowed the seeds
of thought. The rise and set of sun, the birth and death of day, the dawns
of silver and the dusks of gold, the wonders of the rain and snow, the
shroud of Winter and the many colored robe of Spring, the lonely moon with
nightly loss or gain, the serpent lightning and the thunder's voice, the
tempest's fury and the zephyr's sigh, the threat of storm and promise of
the bow, cathedral clouds with dome and spire, earthquake and strange eclipse,
frost and fire, the snow-crowned mountains with their tongues of flame,
the fields of space sown thick with stars, the wandering comets hurrying
past the fixed and sleepless sentinels of night, the marvels of the earth
and air, the perfumed flower, the painted wing, the waveless pool that
held within its magic breast the image of the startled face, the mimic
echo that made a record in the viewless air, the pathless forests
and the boundless seas, the ebb and flow of tides -- the slow, deep breathing
of some vague and monstrous life -- the miracle of birth, the mystery of
dream and death, and over all the silent and immeasurable dome. These were
the warp and woof, and at the loom sat Love and Fancy, Hope and Fear, and
wove the wondrous tapestries whereon we find pictures of gods and fairy
lands and all the legends that were told when Nature rocked the cradle
of the infant world.

IV

WE must remember that there is a great difference
between a myth and a miracle. A myth is the idealization of a fact. A miracle
is the counterfeit of a fact. There is the same difference between a myth
and a miracle that there is between fiction and falsehood -- between poetry
and perjury. Miracles belong to the far past and the far future. The little
line of sand, called the present, between the seas, belongs to common sense,
to the natural.

If you should tell a man that the dead were raised two thousand years
ago, he would probably say: "Yes, I know that." If you should
say that a hundred thousand years from now all the dead will be raised,
he might say: "Probably they will." But if you should tell him
that you saw a dead man raised and given life that day, he would likely
ask the name of the insane asylum from which you had escaped.

Our Bible is filled with accounts of miracles and yet they always fail
to convince.

Jehovah, according to the Scriptures, wrought hundreds of
miracles for the benefit of the Jews. With many miracles he rescued them
from slavery, guided them on their journey with a miraculous cloud by day
and a miraculous pillar of fire by night -- divided the sea that they might
escape from the Egyptians, fed them with miraculous manna and supernatural
quails, raised up hornets to attack their enemies, caused water to follow
them wherever they wandered and in countless ways manifested his power,
and yet the Jews cared nothing for these wonders. Not one of them seems
to have been convinced that Jehovah had done anything for the people.

In spite of all these miracles, the Jews had more confidence in a golden
calf, made by themselves, than in Jehovah. The reason of this is, that
the miracles were never performed, and never invented until hundreds of
years after those, who had wandered over the desert of Sinai, were dust.

The miracles attributed to Christ had no effect. No human being seems
to have been convinced by them. Those whom he raised front the dead, cured
of leprosy, or blindness, failed to become his followers. Not one of them
appeared at his trial. Not one offered to bear witness of his miraculous
power.

To this there is but one explanation: The miracles were never performed.
These stories were the growth of centuries. The casting out of devils,
the changing of water into wine, feeding the multitude with a few loaves
and fishes, resisting the devil, using a fish for a pocketbook, curing
the blind with clay and saliva, stilling the tempest, walking on the water,
the resurrection and ascension, happened and only happened, in the imaginations
of men, who were not born until several generations after Christ was dead.

In those days the world was filled with ignorance and fear. Miracles
happened every day. The supernatural was expected. Gods were continually
interfering with the affairs of this world. Everything was told except
the truth, everything believed except the facts. History was a circumstantial
account of occurrences that never occurred. Devils and goblins and ghosts
were as plentiful as saints. The bones of the dead were used to cure the
living. Cemeteries were hospitals and corpses were physicians. The saints
practiced magic, the pious communed with God in dreams, and the course
of events was changed by prayer. The credulous demanded the marvelous,
the miraculous, and the priests supplied the demand. The sky
was full of signs, omens of death and disaster, and the darkness thick
with devils endeavoring to mislead and enslave the souls of men.

Our fathers thought that everything had been made for man, and that
demons and gods gave their entire attention to this world. The people believed
that they were the sport and prey, the favorites or victims, of these phantoms.
And they also believed that the Creator, the God, could be influenced by
sacrifice, by prayers and ceremonies.

This has been the mistake of the world. All the temples have been reared,
all the altars erected, all the sacrifices offered, all the prayers uttered
in vain. No god has interfered, no prayer has been answered, no help received
from heaven. Nothing was created, nothing has happened for, or with reference
to man. If not a human being lived, -- if all were in their graves, the
sun would continue to shine, the wheeling world would still pursue its
flight, violets would spread their velvet bosoms to the day, the spendthrift
roses give their perfume to the air, the climbing vines would hide with
leaf and flower the fallen and the dead, the changing seasons would come
and go, time would repeat the poem of the year, storms would
wreck and whispering rains repair, Spring with deft and unseen hands would
weave her robes of green, life with countless lips would seek fair Summer's
swelling breasts, Autumn would reap the wealth of leaf and fruit and seed,
Winter, the artist, would etch in frost the pines and ferns, while Wind
and Wave and Fire, old architects, with ceaseless toil would still destroy
and build, still wreck and change, and from the dust of death produce again
the throb and breath of life.

V

AFEW years ago a few men began to
think, to investigate, to reason. They began to doubt the legends of the
church, the miracles of the past. They began to notice what happened. They
found that eclipses came at certain intervals and that their coming could
be foretold. They became satisfied that the conduct of men had nothing
to do with eclipses -- and that the stars moved in their orbits unconscious
of the sons of men. Galileo, Copernicus, and Kepler destroyed the astronomy
of the Bible, and demonstrated that the "inspired" story of creation
could not be true, and that the church was as ignorant as the priests were
dishonest.

They found that the myth-makers were mistaken, that the sun and
stars did not revolve about the earth, that the firmament was not solid,
that the earth was not flat, and that the so-called philosophy of
the theologians was absurd and idiotic.

The stars became witnesses against the creeds of superstition.

With the telescope the heavens were explored. The New Jerusalem could
not be found.

It had faded away.

The church persecuted the astronomers and denied the facts. In February,
in the year of grace sixteen hundred, the Catholic Church, the "Triumphant
Beast," having in her hands, her paws, the keys of heaven and hell,
accused Giordano Bruno of having declared that there were other worlds
than this. He was tried, convicted, imprisoned in a dungeon for seven years.
He was offered his liberty if he would recant. Bruno, the atheist, the
philosopher, refused to stain his soul by denying what he believed to be
true. He was taken from his cell by the priests, by those who loved their
enemies, led to the place of execution. He was clad in a robe on which
representations of devils had been painted -- the devils that were soon
to claim his soul. He was chained to a stake and about his body the wood
was piled. Then priests, followers of Christ, lighted the fagots and flames
consumed the greatest, the most perfect martyr, that ever suffered death.

And yet the Italian agent of God, the infallible Leo XIII., only a few
years ago, denounced Bruno, the "bravest of the brave," as a
coward.

The church murdered him, and the pope maligned his memory. Fagot and
falsehood -- two weapons of the church.

A little while ago a few men began to examine rocks and soils, mountains,
islands, reefs and seas. They noticed the valleys and deltas that had been
formed by rivers, the many strata of lava that had been changed to soil,
the vast deposits of metals and coal, the immense reefs that the coral
had formed, the work of glaciers in the far past, the production of soil
by the disintegration of rock, by the growth and decay of vegetation and
the countless evidences of the countless ages through which the Earth has
passed. The geologists read the history of the world written by wave and
flame, attested by fossils, by the formation of rocks, by mountain ranges,
by volcanoes, by rivers, islands, continents and seas.

The geology of the Bible -- of the "divinely inspired" church,
of the "infallible" pope, was found to be utterly false and foolish.

The Earth became a witness against the creeds of superstition.

Then came Watt and Galvani with the miracles of steam and electricity,
while countless inventors created the wonderful machines that do the work
of the world. Investigation took the place of credulity. Men
became dissatisfied with huts and rags, with crusts and creeds. They longed
for the comforts, the luxuries of life. The intellectual horizon enlarged,
new truths were discovered, old ideas were thrown aside, the brain was
developed, the heart civilized and science was born. Humboldt, Laplace
and hundreds of others explained the phenomena of nature, called attention
to the ancient and venerable mistakes of sanctified ignorance and added
to the sum of knowledge. Darwin and Haeckel gave their conclusions to the
world. Men began to really think, the myths began to fade, the miracles
to grow mean and small, and the great structure, known as theology, fell
with a crash.

Science denies the truth of myth and miracle, denies that human testimony
can substantiate the miraculous, denies the existence of the supernatural.
Science asserts the absolute, the unvarying uniformity of nature. Science
insists that the present is the child of all the past, -- that no power
can change the past, and that nature is forever the same.

The chemist has found that just so many atoms of one kind unite with
just so many of another -- no more, no less, always the same.
No caprice in chemistry; no interference from without.

The astronomers know that the planets remain in their orbits -- that
their forces are constant. They know that light is forever the same, always
obeying the angle of incidence, traveling with the same rapidity, -- casting
the same shadow, under the same circumstances in all worlds. They know
that the eclipses will occur at the times foretold -- neither hastening
nor delaying. They know that the attraction of gravitation is always the
same, always in perfect proportion to mass and distance, neither weaker
nor stronger, unvarying forever. They know that the facts in nature cannot
be changed or be destroyed, and that the qualities of all things are eternal.

The men of science know that the atomic integrity of the metals is always
the same, that each metal is true to its nature and that the particles
cling to each other with the same tenacity, -- the same force. They have
demonstrated the persistence of force, that it is forever active, forever
the same, and that it cannot be destroyed.

These great truths have revolutionized the thought of the world.

Every art, every employment, all study, all experiment, the
value of experience, of judgment, of hope, all rest on a belief in the
uniformity of nature, on the eternal persistence and indestructibility
of force.

Break one link in the infinite chain of cause and effect, and the Master
of Nature appears. The broken link would become the throne of a god.

The uniformity of Nature denies the supernatural and demonstrates that
there is no interference from without. There is no place, no office left
for gods. Ghosts fade from the brain and the shrivelled deities fall palsied
from their thrones.

The uniformity of Nature renders a belief in "special providence"
impossible. Prayer becomes a useless agitation of the air, and religious
ceremonies are but motions, pantomimes, mindless and meaningless.

The naked savage, worshiping a wooden god, is the religious equal of
the robed pope kneeling before an image of the Virgin. The poor African
who carries roots and bark to protect himself from evil spirits is on the
same intellectual plane of one who sprinkles his body with "holy water."

All the creeds of Christendom, all the religions of the heathen world
are equally absurd. The cathedral, the mosque and the joss house have the
same foundation. Their builders do not believe in the uniformity
of Nature, and the business of all priests is to induce a so-called
infinite being to change the order of events, to make causes barren of
effects and to produce effects without, and in spite of, natural causes.
They all believe in the unthinkable and pray for the impossible.

Science teaches us that there was no creation and that there can be
no destruction. The infinite denies creation and defies destruction. An
infinite person, an "infinite being" is an infinite impossibility.
To conceive of such a being is beyond the power of the mind. Yet all religions
rest upon the supposed existence of the unthinkable, the inconceivable.
And the priests of these religions pretend to be perfectly familiar with
the designs, will, and wishes of this unthinkable, this inconceivable.

Science teaches that that which really is has always been, that behind
every effect is the efficient and necessary cause, that there is in the
universe neither chance nor interference, and that energy is eternal. Day
by day the authority of the theologian grows weaker and weaker. As the
people become intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers.
Their confidence in knowledge, in thought and investigation increases.
They are eager to know the discoveries, the useful truths, the important
facts made, ascertained and demonstrated by the explorers in the domain
of the natural. They are no longer satisfied with the platitudes of the
pulpit, and the assertions of theologians. They are losing confidence in
the "sacred Scriptures" and in the protecting power and goodness
of the supernatural. They are satisfied that credulity is not a virtue
and that investigation is not a crime.

Science is the providence of man, the worker of true miracles, of real
wonders. Science has "read a little in Nature's infinite book of secrecy."
Science knows the circuits of the winds, the courses of the stars. Fire
is his servant, and lightning his messenger. Science freed the slaves and
gave liberty to their masters. Science taught man to enchain, not his fellows,
but the forces of nature, forces that have no backs to be scarred, no limbs
for chains to chill and eat, forces that have no hearts to break, forces
that never know fatigue, forces that shed no tears. Science is the great
physician. His touch has given sight. He has made the lame to leap, the
deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and in the pallid face his hand has set
the rose of health. Science has given his beloved sleep and wrapped
in happy dreams the throbbing nerves of pain. Science is the destroyer
of disease, builder of happy homes, the preserver of life and love. Science
is the teacher of every virtue, the enemy of every vice. Science has given
the true basis of morals, the origin and office of conscience, revealed
the nature of obligation, of duty, of virtue in its highest, noblest forms,
and has demonstrated that true happiness is the only possible good. Science
has slain the monsters of superstition, and destroyed the authority of
inspired books. Science has read the records of the rocks, records that
priestcraft cannot change. and on his wondrous scales has weighed the atom
and the star.

Science has founded the only true religion. Science is the only Savior
of this world.

VI

FOR many ages religion has been tried. For
countless centuries man has sought for help from heaven. To soften the
heart of God, mothers sacrificed their babes! but the God did not hear,
did not see, and did not help. Naked savages were devoured by beasts, bitten
by serpents, killed by flood and frost. They prayed for help, but their
God was deaf. They built temples and altars, employed priests and gave
of their substance, but the volcano destroyed and the famine came. For
the sake of God millions murdered their fellow-men, but the God was
silent. Millions of martyrs died for the honor of God, but the God was
blind. He did not see the flames, the scaffolds. He did not hear the prayers,
the groans. Thousands of priests in the name of God, tortured their fellow-men,
stretched them on racks, crushed their feet in iron boots, tore out their
tongues, extinguished their eyes. The victims implored the protection of
God, but their god did not hear, did not see. He was deaf and
blind. He was willing that his enemies should torture his friends.

Nations tried to destroy each other for the sake of God, and the banner
of the cross dripping with blood floated over a thousand fields -- but
the god was silent. He neither knew nor cared. Pestilence covered the earth
with dead, the priests prayed, the altars were heaped with sacrifices,
but the god did not see, did not hear. The miseries of the world did not
lessen the joys of heaven. The clouds gave no rain, the famine came, withered
babes with pallid lips sought the breasts of dead mothers, while starving
fathers knelt and prayed, but the god did not hear. Through many centuries
millions were enslaved, babes were sold from mothers, husbands from wives,
backs were scarred with the lash. The poor wretches lifted their clasped
hands toward heaven and prayed for justice, for liberty -- but their god
did not hear. He cared nothing for the sufferings of slaves, nothing for
the tears of wives and mothers, nothing for the agony of men. He answered
no prayers. He broke no chains. He freed no slaves.

The miserable wretches appealed to the priests of God, but
they were on the other side. They defended the masters. The slaves had
nothing to give.

During all these years it was claimed by the theologians that their
God was governing the world, that he was infinitely powerful, wise and
good -- and that the "powers" of the earth were "ordained"
by him. During all these years the church was the enemy of progress. It
hated all physicians and told the people to rely on prayer, amulets and
relics. It persecuted the astronomers and geologists, denounced them as
infidels and atheists, as enemies of the human race. It poisoned the fountains
of learning and insisted that teachers should distort the facts in nature
to the end that they might harmonize with the "inspired" book.
During all these years the church misdirected the energies of man, and
when it reached the zenith of its power, darkness fell upon the world.

In all nations and in all ages, religion has failed. The gods have never
interfered. Nature has produced and destroyed without mercy and without
hatred. She has cared no more for man than for the leaves of the forest,
no more for nations than for hills of ants, cared nothing for right or
wrong, for life or death, for pain or joy.

Man through his intelligence must protect himself. He gets no help from
any other world. The church has always claimed and still claims that it
is the only reforming power, that it makes men honest, virtuous and merciful,
that it prevents violence and war, and that without its influence the race
would return to barbarism.

Nothing can exceed the absurdity of these claims. If we wish to improve
the condition of mankind -- if we wish for nobler men and women we must
develop the brain, we must encourage thought and investigation. We must
convince the world that credulity is a vice, -- that there is no virtue
in believing without, or against evidence, and that the really honest man
is true to himself. We must fill the world with intellectual light. We
must applaud mental courage. We must educate the children, rescue them
from ignorance and crime. School-houses are the real temples, and
teachers are the true priests. We must supply the wants of the mind, satisfy
the hunger of the brain. The people should be familiar with the great poets,
with the tragedies of Æschylus, the dramas of Shakespeare, with the
poetry of Homer and Virgil. Shakespeare should be taught in every school,
found in every house.

Through photography the whole world may become acquainted with the great
statues, the great paintings, the victories of art. In this way the mind
is enlarged, the sympathies quickened, the appreciation of the beautiful
intensified, the taste refined and the character ennobled.

The great novels should be read by all. All should be acquainted with
the men and women of fiction, with the ideal world. The imagination should
be developed, trained and strengthened. Superstition has degraded art and
literature. It gave us winged monsters, scenes from heaven and hell, representations
of gods and devils, sculptured the absurd and painted the impossible in
the name of Art. It gave us the dreams of the insane, the lives of fanatical
saints, accounts of miracles and wonders, of cures wrought by the bones
of the dead, descriptions of Paradise, purgatory and the eternal dungeon,
discourses on baptism, on changing wine and wafers into the blood and flesh
of God, on the forgiveness of sins by priests, on fore-ordination
and accountability, predestination and free will, on devils, ghosts and
goblins, the ministrations of guardian angels, the virtue of belief and
the wickedness of doubt. And this was called "sacred literature."

The church taught that those who believed, counted beads, mumbled prayers,
and gave their time or property for the support of the gospel were the
good and that all others were traveling the "broad road" to eternal
pain. According to the theologians, the best people, the saints, were dead,
and real beauty was to be found only in heaven. They denounced the joys
of life as husks and filthy rags, declared that the world had been cursed,
and that it brought forth thistles and thorns because of the sins of man.
They regarded the earth as a kind of dock, running out into the sea of
eternity, -- on which the pious waited for the ship on which they were
to be transported to another world.

But the real poets and the real artists clung to this world, to this
life. They described and represented things that exist. They expressed
thoughts of the brain, emotions of the heart, the griefs and joys, the
hope and despair of men and women. They found strength and beauty on every
hand. They found their angels here. They were true to human experience
and they touched the brain and heart of the world. In the tragedies and
comedies of life, in the smiles and tears, in the ecstasies of love, in
the darkness of death, in the dawn of hope, they found their
materials for statue and song, for poem and painting. Poetry and art are
the children of this world, born and nourished here. They are human. They
have left the winged monsters of heaven, the malicious deformities of hell,
and have turned their attention to men and women, to the things of this
life.

There is a poem called "The Skylark," by Shelley, graceful
as the motions of flames. Another by Robert Burns, called "The Daisy,"
exquisite, perfect as the pearl of virtue in the beautiful breast of a
loving girl. Between this lark and this daisy, neither above nor below,
you will find all the poetry of the world. Eloquence, sublimity, poetry
and art must have the foundation of fact, of reality. Imaginary worlds
and beings are nothing to us.

At last the old creeds are becoming cruel and vulgar. We now have imagination
enough to put ourselves in the place of others. Believers in hell, in eternal
pain, like murderers, lack imagination. The murderer has not imagination
enough to see his victim dead. He does not see the sightless and pathetic
eyes. He does not see the widow's arms about the corpse, her lips upon
the dead. He does not hear the sobs of children. He does not see the
funeral. He does not hear the clods as they fall on the coffin. He does
not feel the hand of arrest, the scene of the trial is not before him.
He does not hear the awful verdict, the sentence of the court, the last
words. He does not see the scaffold, nor feel about his throat the deadly
noose.

Let us develop the brain, civilize the heart, and give wings to the
imagination.

VII

IF we abandon myth and miracle, if we discard
the supernatural and the scheme of redemption, how are we to civilize the
world?

Is falsehood a reforming power? Is credulity the mother of virtue? Is
there any saving grace in the impossible and absurd? Did wisdom perish
with the dead? Must the civilized accept the religion of savages?

If we wish to reform the world we must rely on truth, on fact, on reason.
We must teach men that they are good or bad for themselves, that others
cannot be good or bad for them, that they cannot be charged with the crimes,
or credited with the virtues of others. We must discard the doctrine of
the atonement, because it is absurd and immoral. We are not accountable
for the sins of "Adam" and the virtues of Christ cannot be transferred
to us. There can be no vicarious virtue, no vicarious vice. Why should
the sufferings of the innocent atone for the crimes of the guilty.
According to the doctrine of the atonement right and wrong do not exist
in the nature of things, but in the arbitrary will of the Infinite. This
is a subversion of all ideas of justice and mercy.

An act is good, bad, or indifferent, according to its consequences.
No power can step between an act and its natural consequences. A governor
may pardon the criminal, but the natural consequences of the crime remain
untouched. A god may forgive, but the consequences of the act forgiven,
are still the same. We must teach the world that the consequences of a
bad action cannot be avoided, that they are the invisible police, the unseen
avengers, that accept no gifts, that hear no prayers, that no cunning can
deceive.

We do not need the forgiveness of gods, but of ourselves and the ones
we injure. Restitution without repentance is far better than repentance
without restitution.

We know nothing of any god who rewards, punishes or forgives.

We must teach our fellow-men that honor comes from within, not
from without, that honor must be earned, that it is not alms, that even
an infinite God could not enrich the beggar's palm with the gem
of honor.

Teach them also that happiness is the bud, the blossom and the fruit
of good and noble actions, that it is not the gift of any god; that it
must be earned by man -- must be deserved.

In this world of ours there is no magic, no sleight-of-hand,
by which consequences can be made to punish the good and reward the bad.

Teach men not to sacrifice this world for some other, but to turn their
attention to the natural, to the affairs of this life. Teach them that
theology has no known foundation, that it was born of ignorance and fear,
that it has hardened the heart, polluted the imagination and made fiends
of men.

Theology is not for this world. It is no part of real religion. It has
nothing to do with goodness or virtue. Religion does not consist in worshiping
gods, but in adding to the well-being, the happiness of man. No human
being knows whether any god exists or not, and all that has been said and
written about "our god," or the gods of other people, has no
known fact for a foundation. Words without thoughts, clouds without rain.

Let us put theology out of religion.

Church and state should be absolutely divorced. Priests pretend that
they have been selected by, and that they get their power from God. Kings
occupy their thrones in accordance with the will of God. The pope declares
that he is the agent, the deputy of God and that by right he should rule
the world. All these pretensions and assertions are perfectly absurd and
yet they are acknowledged and believed by millions. Get theology out of
government and kings will descend from their thrones. All will admit that
governments get their powers from the consent of the governed, and that
all persons in office are the servants of the people. Get theology out
of government and chaplains will be dismissed from Legislatures, from Congress,
from the army and navy. Get theology out of government and people will
be allowed to express their honest thoughts about "inspired books"
and superstitious creeds. Get theology out of government and priests will
no longer steal a seventh of our time. Get theology out of government and
the clergy will soon take their places with augurs and soothsayers, with
necromancers and medicine-men.

Get theology out of education. Nothing should be taught in a school
that somebody does not know. There are plenty of things to be learned about
this world, about this life. Every child should be taught to think, and
that it is dangerous not to think. Children should not be taught the absurdities,
the cruelties and imbecilities of superstition. No church should be allowed
to control the common school, and public money should not be divided between
the hateful and warring sects. The public school should be secular, and
only the useful should be taught. Many of our colleges are under the control
of churches. Presidents and professors are mostly ministers of the gospel
and the result is that all facts inconsistent with the creeds are either
suppressed or denied. Only those professors who are naturally stupid or
mentally dishonest can retain their places. Those who tell the truth, who
teach the facts, are discharged.

In every college truth should be a welcome guest. Every professor should
be a finder, and every student a learner, of facts. Theology and intellectual
dishonesty go together. The teacher of children should be intelligent and
perfectly sincere.

Let us get theology out of education.

The pious denounce the secular schools as godless. They should be. The
sciences are all secular, all godless. Theology bears the same relation
to science that the black art does to chemistry, that magic does
to mathematics. It is something that cannot be taught, because it cannot
be known. It has no foundation in fact. It neither produces, nor accords
with, any image in the mind. It is not only unknowable but unthinkable.
Through hundreds and thousands of generations men have been discussing,
wrangling and fighting about theology. No advance has been made. The robed
priest has only reached the point from which the savage tried to start.

We know that theology always has and always will make enemies. It sows
the seeds of hatred in families and nations. It is selfish, cruel, revengeful
and malicious. It has heaven for the few and perdition for the many. We
now know that credulity is not a virtue and that intellectual courage is.
We must stop rewarding hypocrisy and bigotry. We must stop persecuting
the thinkers, the investigators, the creators of light, the civilizers
of the world.

VIII

WILL the unknown, the mysteries of life
and death, the world that lies beyond the limitations of the mind, forever
furnish food for superstition? Will the gods and ghosts perish or simply
retreat before the advancing hosts of science, and continue to crouch and
lurk just beyond the horizon of the known? Will darkness forever be the
womb and mother of the supernatural?

A little while ago priests told peasants that the New Jerusalem, the
celestial city was just above the clouds. They said that its walls and
domes and spires were just beyond the reach of human sight. The telescope
was invented and those who looked at the wilderness of stars, saw no city,
no throne. They said to the priests: "Where is your New Jerusalem?"
The priests cheerfully and confidently replied. "It is just beyond
where you see."

At one time it was believed that a race of men existed "with their
heads beneath their shoulders." Returning travelers from distant lands
were asked about these wonderful people and all replied that
they had not seen them. "Oh," said the believers in the monsters,
"the men with heads beneath their shoulders live in a country that
you did not visit." And so the monsters lived and flourished until
all the world was known. We cannot know the universe. We cannot travel
infinite distances, and so, somewhere in shoreless space there will always
be room for gods and ghosts, for heavens and hells. And so it may be that
superstition will live and linger until the world becomes intelligent enough
to build upon the foundation of the known, to keep the imagination within
the domain of the probable, and to believe in the natural -- until the
supernatural shall have been demonstrated.

Savages knew all about gods, about heavens and hells before they knew
anything about the world in which they lived. They were perfectly familiar
with evil spirits, with the invisible phantoms of the air, long before
they had any true conception of themselves. So, they knew all about the
origin and destiny of the human race. They were absolutely certain about
the problems, the solution of which, philosophers know, is beyond the limitations
of the mind. They understood astrology, but not astronomy, knew
something of magic, but nothing about chemistry. They were wise only as
to those things about which nothing can be known.

The poor Indian believed in the "Great Spirit" and saw "design"
on every hand. -- Trees were made that he might have bows and arrows, wood
for his fire and bark for his wigwam -- rivers and lakes to give him fish,
wild beasts and corn that he might have food, and the animals had skins
that he might have clothes.

Primitive peoples all reasoned in the same way, and modern Christians
follow their example. They knew but little of the world and thought that
it had been made expressly for the use of man. They did not know that it
was mostly water, that vast regions were locked in eternal ice and that
in most countries the conditions were unfavorable to human life. They knew
nothing of the countless enemies of man that live unseen in water, food
and air. Back of the little good they knew they put gods and back of the
evil, devils. They thought it of the greatest importance to gain the good
will of the gods, who alone could protect them from the devils. Those who
worshiped these gods, offered sacrifices, and obeyed priests, were considered
loyal members of the tribe or community, and those who refused
to worship were regarded as enemies and traitors. The believers, in order
to protect themselves from the anger of the gods, exiled or destroyed the
infidels.

Believing as they did, the course they pursued was natural. They not
only wished to protect themselves from disease and death, from pestilence
and famine in this world but the souls of their children from eternal pain
in the next. Their gods were savages who demanded flattery and worship
not only, but the acceptance of a certain creed. As long as Christians
believe in eternal punishment they will be the enemies of those who investigate
and contend for the authority of reason, of those who demand evidence,
who care nothing for the unsupported assertions of the dead or the illogical
inferences of the living.

Science always has been, is, and always will be modest, thoughtful,
truthful. It has but one object: The ascertainment of truth. It has no
prejudice, no hatred. It is in the realm of the intellect and cannot be
swayed or changed by passion. It does not try to please God, to gain heaven
or avoid hell. It is for this world, for the use of man. It is perfectly
candid. It does not try to conceal, but to reveal. It is the enemy of mystery,
of pretence and cant. It does not ask people to be solemn, but sensible.
It calls for and insists on the use of all the senses, of all the faculties
of the mind. It does not pretend to be "holy" or "inspired."
It courts investigation, criticism and even denial. It asks for the application
of every test, for trial by every standard. It knows nothing of blasphemy
and does not ask for the imprisonment of those who ignorantly or knowingly
deny the truth. The good that springs from a knowledge of the truth is
the only reward it offers, and the evil resulting from ignorance is the
only punishment it threatens. Its effort is to reform, the world through
intelligence.

On the other hand theology is, always has been, and always will be,
ignorant, arrogant, puerile and cruel. When the church had power, hypocrisy
was crowned and honesty imprisoned. Fraud wore the tiara and truth was
a convict. Liberty was in chains, Theology has always sent the worst to
heaven, the best to hell.

Let me give you a scene from the day of judgment. Christ is upon his
throne, his secretary by his side. A soul appears. This is what
happens --

"What is your name?

Torquemada.

"Were you a Christian?"

I was.

"Did you endeavor to convert your fellow-men?"

I did. I tried to convert them by persuasion, by preaching and praying
and even by force.

"What did you do?"

I put the heretics in prison, in chains. I tore out their tongues, put
out their eyes, crushed their bones, stretched them upon racks, roasted
their feet, and if they remained obdurate I flayed them alive or burned
them at the stake.

"And did you do all this for my glory?"

Yes, all for you. I wanted to save some, I wanted to protect the young
and the weak minded.

"Did you believe the Bible, the miracles -- that I was God. that
I was born of a virgin and kept money in the mouth of a fish?"

Yes, I believed it all. My reason was the slave of faith.

"Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into
the joys of thy Lord. I was hungry and you gave me meat, naked and you
clothed me."

Another soul arises.

"What is your name?"

Giordano Bruno.

"Were you a Christian?"

At one time I was, but for many years I was a philosopher, a seeker
after truth.

"Did you seek to convert your fellow-men?"

Not to Christianity, but to the religion of reason. I tried to develop
their minds, to free them from the slavery of ignorance and superstition.
In my day the church taught the holiness of credulity -- the virtue of
unquestioning obedience, and in your name tortured and destroyed the intelligent
and courageous. I did what I could to civilize the world, to make men tolerant
and merciful, to soften the hearts of priests, and banish torture from
the world. I expressed my honest thoughts and walked in the light of reason.

"Did you believe the Bible, the miracles? Did you believe that
I was God, that I was born of a virgin and that I suffered myself to be
killed by the Jews to appease the wrath of God -- that is, of myself --
so that God could save the souls of a few?"

No, I did not. I did not believe that God was ever born into my world,
or that God learned the trade of a carpenter, or that he "increased
in knowledge," or that he cast devils out of men, or that his garments
could cure diseases, or that he allowed himself to be murdered, and in
the hour of death "forsook" himself. These things I did not and
could not believe. But I did all the good I could. I enlightened the ignorant,
comforted the afflicted, defended the innocent, divided even my poverty
with the poor, and did the best I could to increase the happiness of my
fellow-men. I was a soldier in the army of progress. -- I was arrested,
imprisoned, tried and convicted by the church -- by the "Triumphant
Beast." I was burned at the stake by ignorant and heartless priests
and my ashes given to the winds.

Then Christ, his face growing dark, his brows contracted with wrath,
with uplifted hands, with half averted face, cries or rather shrieks: "Depart
from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his
angels."

This is the justice of God -- the mercy of the compassionate Christ.
This is the belief, the dream and hope of the orthodox theologian -- "the
consummation devoutly to be wished."

Theology makes God a monster, a tyrant, a savage; makes man a servant,
a serf, a slave; promises heaven to the obedient, the meek, the frightened,
and threatens the self-reliant with the tortures of hell.

It denounces reason and appeals to the passions -- to hope and fear.
It does not answer the arguments of those who attack, but resorts to sophistry,
falsehood and slander. It is incapable of advancement. It keeps its back
to the sunrise, lives on myth and miracle, and guards with a miser's care
the "sacred" superstitions of the past.

In the great struggle between the supernatural and the natural, between
gods and men, we have passed midnight. All the forces of civilization,
all the facts that have been found, all the truths that have been discovered
are the allies of science -- the enemies of the supernatural.

We need no myths, no miracles, no gods, no devils.

IX

WOR thousands of generations the myths have been
taught and the miracles believed. Every mother was a missionary and told
with loving care the falsehoods of "faith" to her babe. The poison
of superstition was in the mother's milk. She was honest and affectionate
and her character, her goodness, her smiles and kisses, entered into, mingled
with, and became a part of the superstition that she taught. Fathers, friends
and priests united with the mothers, and the children thus taught, became
the teachers of their children and so the creeds were kept alive.

Childhood loves the romantic, the mysterious, the monstrous. It lives
in a world where cause has nothing to do with effect, where the fairy waves
her hand and the prince appears. Where wish creates the thing desired and
facts become the slaves of amulet and charm. The individual lives the life
of the race, and the child is charmed with what the race in its infancy
produced.

There seems to be the same difference between mistakes and facts that
there is between weeds and corn. Mistakes seem to take care of themselves,
while the facts have to be guarded with all possible care. Falsehoods like
weeds flourish without care. Weeds care nothing for soil or rain. They
not only ask no help but they almost defy destruction. In the minds of
children, superstitions, legends, myths and miracles find a natural, and
in most instances a lasting home. Thrown aside in manhood, forgotten or
denied, in old age they oft return and linger to the end.

This in part accounts for the longevity of religious lies. Ministers
with clasped hands and uplifted eyes ask the man who is thinking for himself
how he can be wicked and heartless enough to attack the religion of his
mother. This question is regarded by the clergy as unanswerable. Of course
it is not to be asked by the missionaries, of the Hindus and the Chinese.
The heathen are expected to desert the religion of their mothers as Christ
and his apostles deserted the religion of their mothers. It is right for
Jews and heathen, but not for thinkers and philosophers.

A cannibal was about to kill a missionary for food. The missionary
objected and asked the cannibal how he could be so cruel and wicked.

The cannibal replied that he followed the example of his mother. "My
mother," said he, "was good enough for me. Her religion is my
religion. The last time I saw her she was sitting, propped up against a
tree, eating cold missionary."

But now the mother argument has mostly lost its force, and men of mind
are satisfied with nothing less than truth.

The phenomena of nature have been investigated and the supernatural
has not been found. The myths have faded from the imagination, and of them
nothing remains but the poetic. The miraculous has become the absurd, the
impossible. Gods and phantoms have been driven from the earth and sky.
We are living in a natural world.

Our fathers, some of them, demanded the freedom of religion. We have
taken another step. We demand the Religion of Freedom.

O Liberty, thou art the god of my idolatry! Thou art the only deity
that hateth bended knees. In thy vast and unwalled temple, beneath the
roofless dome, star-gemmed and luminous with suns, thy worshipers
stand erect! They do not cringe, or crawl, or bend their foreheads
to the earth. The dust has never borne the impress of their lips. Upon
thy altars mothers do not sacrifice their babes, nor men their rights.
Thou askest naught from man except the things that good men hate -- the
whip, the chain, the dungeon key. Thou hast no popes, no priests, who stand
between their fellow men and thee. Thou carest not for foolish forms, or
selfish prayers. At thy sacred shrine hypocrisy does not bow, virtue does
not tremble, superstition's feeble tapers do not burn, but Reason holds
aloft her inextinguishable torch whose holy light will one day flood the
world.